All posts tagged USA
I'm not always wearing my full habit...
If I’m lucky, the family will accept the news that, in a time when we can separate conjoined twins and reattach severed limbs, people still wear out and die of old age. If I’m lucky, the family will recognize that their loved one’s life is nearing its end.
Craig Bowron, in Our unrealistic attitudes about death, through a doctor’s eyes
When my grandmother was dying of kidney failure last November, her three children struggled with the question of when to ask for pain medication. One refused to acknowledge the signs of pain, being more concerned with Nana’s blood pressure than with keeping her comfortable. This sibling held the medical power of attorney. One tried to stay out of the medical decisions; this sibling held the financial power of attorney. My mom didn’t know what to think or say or do, wrestling with her hope that her mother would wake and acknowledge that she was there against her wish that her mother would not have the painful and miserable death that her father had three years ago. They would stare at each other when the nurse at the hospital asked to confirm the dose of pain medication, like three deer simultaneously caught in the headlights, unable to speak. Even though I was two generations away, I would speak up: “We want her as comfortable as she can be.”
Hospitals — even the Mayo Clinic hospital in Florida (State motto: God’s Waiting Room) — are not well equipped to handle patients at the end of life. We were so thankful for the nurses and social workers from the hospice, who would check up on the doctor’s orders and make sure that as much as could be done for Nana was being done for her. They would spend time in the room just chatting with us, hearing and laughing with us at family stories, and these were the times when Nana was most peaceful.
The doctor also says this:
When families talk about letting their loved ones die “naturally,” they often mean “in their sleep” — not from a treatable illness such as a stroke, cancer or an infection. Choosing to let a loved one pass away by not treating an illness feels too complicit; conversely, choosing treatment that will push a patient into further suffering somehow feels like taking care of him. While it’s easy to empathize with these family members’ wishes, what they don’t appreciate is that very few elderly patients are lucky enough to die in their sleep. Almost everyone dies of something.
The one blessing of kidney failure was that Nana fell into a sleep, which became a deeper and deeper state of unconsciousness until she passed. It took several days, but we were all glad that her dying was peaceful.
The dying stand on holy ground, and sometimes we are privileged to witness this. It is hard, but it is a blessing.
Is the United States the only country where more men are raped every year than women?
The US justice system is a shameful mockery. May God have mercy on us all.
(Source: oubliettepostcards)
A slide from anthropology class that I found quite powerful.
Shocking and disgusting.
Sadly, Undercover Nun is not surprised. Combine it with white vs. non-white, and you’ll have a horrible indictment of the US. May God have mercy on our souls.
P.S. Did you know that the most dangerous period in a woman’s life, the time when she’s most at risk of being murdered, is while she is pregnant?
(via blackbutshining)
The saddest part of this? That the “read more” link goes to BBC News. Why aren’t we outraged here in the US?
America’s homeless resort to tent cities
Panorama’s Hilary Andersson comes face to face with the reality of poverty in America and finds that, for some, the last resort has become life in a tented encampment.
Just off the side of a motorway on the fringes of the picturesque town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a mismatched collection of 30 tents tucked in the woods has become home - home to those who are either unemployed, or whose wages are so low that they can no longer afford to pay rent.
Conditions are unhygienic. There are no toilets and electricity is only available in the one communal tent where the campers huddle around a wood stove for warmth in the heart of winter.
Ice weighs down the roofs of tents, and rain regularly drips onto the sleeping campers’ faces.
Tent cities have sprung up in and around at least 55 American cities - they represent the bleak reality of America’s poverty crisis …
According to census data, 47 million Americans now live below the poverty line - the most in half a century - fuelled by several years of high unemployment.
One of the largest tented camps is in Florida and is now home to around 300 people. Others have sprung up in New Jersey and Portland.
In the Ann Arbor camp, Alana Gehringer, 23, has had a hacking cough for the last four months.
“The black mould - it was on our pillows, it was on our blankets, we were literally rubbing our faces in it sleeping every night,” she said of wintering in a tent …
See Documentary Above / Read More: BBC News
(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)
To ask middle-class Americans to see American culture as Jesus would see it is to ask them to vote against their own privileged position in society…
(via azspot)
When teachers are afraid to stand up for their students, as were Justin’s, and when leaders stand by and allow masses to trample over the vulnerable, what is there left to teach, and who is left to lead?
America, you have a problem. You need to grow up. Life is too short and the world too complicated. You have too much to give to your country and others to be dragged down over gay and straight. So please look up.
When you do, you will see a country of multiple faiths that is learning to live with faith, difference, and dignity. Civility and decency are not virtuous aspirations; they are necessities. Like it or not, to borrow a lesson from one of your favourite books, we are our brother’s keeper.
I know this is none of my business. Yet I couldn’t stay silent any longer. It’s like watching two trains headed towards each other in slow motion.
From time to time it’s necessary that friends speak from the heart. And frankly, you need it now, because from your big neighbor to the north, not only literally, but also figuratively, you’re looking kind of small.
Dear America: You Have a Gay Problem (via kileyrae)
Undercover Nun applauds Mr. Scheinert for his letter.
(via vinylsticker)
For evolution, the report points out that eight anti-evolution bills were introduced in six state legislatures last year. This year, two similar bills were pre-filed in New Hampshire and one in Indiana. ”And these tactics are far more subtle than they once were,” write the authors. “Missouri, for example, has asterisked all ‘controversial’ evolution content in the standards and relegated it to a voluntary curriculum that will not be assessed … Tennessee includes evolution only in an elective high school course (not the basic high school biology course).” Maryland, according to the report, includes evolution content but “explicitly excludes” crucial points about evolution from its state-wide tests.
U.S. State Science Standards Are ‘Mediocre to Awful’ | Budding Scientist, Scientific American Blog Network (via brooklynmutt)
I have a full-on nerd crush on Dr. Richard Feynman. Of the things he’s written, some of my favorites are his reviews of science textbooks for the state of California.
Science is about discovery, risk-taking, creativity, imagination — all things that come naturally to children! But American schools don’t teach science. Instead, we crush these important traits by teaching our children and youth to memorize facts. Imagine what our next generation could do if we empowered them with their own native imagination, creativity, and intuition!
(via hairtrending)
If you approve of that – you think that’s peaceable assembly – you need to be peed on. See how you like it.
Tennessee Rep. Eric Watson, sponsor of a bill to remove Occupy Nashville protesters, with a penalty of nearly a year in jail or a $2,500 fine.
The House Judiciary Committee voted 14-2 to approve a ban on unauthorized camping on public grounds, in a bid to force the four-month-old Occupy encampment from War Memorial Plaza. The committee also approved an amendment that raised violations to a Class A misdemeanor, the highest class of penalties short of a felony.
(via mockingbirds)
Yup, now being homeless in Tennessee is one step short of a felony. Nice.
(Source: tennessean.com)
Santorum Tells Sick Kid Not To Complain About $1 Million Drug Costs Because People Pay $900 For An IPad | ThinkProgress
While campaigning yesterday in Woodland Park, Colorado, GOP contender Rick Santorum told a sick child and his mother that they shouldn’t complain about the exorbitant cost of his medication because some people spend $900 on iPads. He appeared unmoved by the plight of the family, staunchly defending drug companies’ right to charge whatever they want.
The candidate also said that the parent and childunjustly felt entitled to get life-saving care at an affordable rate:
GOP contender Rick Santorum had a heated exchange with a mother and her sick young son Wednesday, arguing that drug companies were entitled to charge whatever the market demanded for life-saving therapies.[…]
“People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad,” Santorum said, “but paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.”
The mother said the boy was on the drug Abilify, used to treat schizophrenia, and that, on paper, its costs would exceed $1 million each year.
Santorum said drugs take years to develop and cost millions of dollars to produce, and manufacturers need to turn a profit or they would stop developing new drugs.
Santorum proceeded to lecture the mother and suggest she should be grateful to the drug companies for saving her son’s life. “He’s alive today because drug companies provide care,” Santorum said. “And if they didn’t think they could make money providing that drug, that drug wouldn’t be here.” He also claimed it would “freeze innovation” if pharmaceutical companies were required to offer their drugs at a reasonable price.
Dear Mr. Santorum:
Undercover Nun is praying for your immortal soul. God knows, you need it.
In Christ’s love,
Me
(Source: silas216)
A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey confirmed this afternoon that the Marietta Republican walked out of President Barack Obama’s address at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, offended by what the congressman said was an injection of political rhetoric into an occasion of non-partisan reflection.
Phil Gingrey walks out on Barack Obama’s prayer address (via ryking)
First of all, Gingrey has no problem when his party politicizes religion (which is an hourly and nationwide occurrence), so he’s a hypocrite. Second, Obama wasn’t politicizing religion. Third, this breakfast is highly inappropriate, sending a message that non-Christians are second-class citizens.
I agree with all three points.
